Got A Ukulele Review Of The Year 2017

bazmaz

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Aloha brother Baz -

Thanks for all your hard work and effort in sharing the info about all of these instruments.

Your web site is a valuable resource to all of us, without which there would be a great void.

Your voice in this community is both needed and meaningful, and I am sure that I am not alone in appreciating your wonderful contributions.

Here's looking forward to 2018 being even better than 2017!

:cheers: :rock: :nana: :music:
 
Many thanks for your work Barry. I've learned a lot from your site, and your videos are always fun to watch. :worship:
 
Thanks very much both - been quite a year - I usually summarise the best of each month, but it's literally been a uke review every week!!
 
I agree with comments above and thank you BAZ for you review. Its nice to sign on and see some many great reviews. Good job.

All the best for 2018.
Cheeers
 
Thanks for your contribution to the Uke World!

Happy New Year! :)
 
The only thing I wish you would reconsider from 2017 is the decision to no longer cover Amazon-only brands. Obviously, it is your blog and you can do what you want. That said, people are not going to stop shopping Amazon for everything, including the first time ukulele buyer. They might stop long enough to do a search and to find a link to a review on the world’s leading ukulele review blog—but I doubt they will go much further, and they (sadly) won’t buy your book until well after the purchase.

If you aren’t going to do those reviews, hopefully someone else will step up to be the voice of reason.

I wish that voice would remain yours for the Amazon-only group as well..and I would encourage you to expose marketing practices.

And as you say, the reviews are only your opinion...but we would be foolish to say that your opinion doesn’t influence the marketplace. The Caramel thread has been dead on UU since your review. That says something.

Keep up the great work, Barry, and have a great start to 2018.
 
It was a tough decision, but I just dont want to be part of encouraging those brands. Of course, not all of them are employing dodgy marketing tactics, but the trouble is - those that I KNOW categorically ARE lied to me when I asked the straight question of them.

Another Amazon only brand emailed me the other day looking for a review. They were saying all the right things in responses to my intitial questions. Thing is, I already KNEW they were doing the 'free uke in return for reviews thing' as somebody had emailed me about them. I finally put that to them and they flat out lied in response. That is the end of that. This is becoming a 'thing' and not just with ukuleles - all sorts of products are setting up 'review groups' to encourage reviews and specifically instructing reviewers not to say they had the thing for free when writing their review. That is 100% against the Amazon TOS on reviews and the reviews should be taken down.

The brand that I think most people know led to this (the one I reviewed then deleted) should have set alarm bells ringing before I found out the truth. In the early discussions with them I remember them contacting me and actually asking me to review but only put that review on Amazon. They were not interested in the Got A Ukulele review as such - it was ALL about getting a good review on Amazon. The greater the 5star percentage, the more likelihood the item will appear on page one of searches. Obviously I disagreed, but I should have realised that it was odd that they were asking for Amazon only. Of course, this is before I had worked out the scale of what was happening.

So as I say, whilst it's probably wrong to tar all with the same brush, but when you can't even get a straight and truthful answer from some of them it gets hard to know what to believe. I really only want to review instruments where the brands are completely open and straight. I am doing THEM a favour after all. To not be is them treating ME with contempt and I'm not interested in that.

To be clear - I have no issue with ukes that are listed on Amazon per se - many reputable brands are on there as well as specialist uke stores who use the marketplace as a simple selling platform. But those brands also tend to appear in bricks and mortar stores also.

As for influencing the marketplace - maybe their absence on a review on my page will start to sound alarm bells?

Maybe I'll change my mind down the line, but for now I have plenty of other instruments lined up!
 
Thanks for your reviews, always interesting to see your view of the ukes that you test out.

Personally, I'm not keen on any brand that is only available from one source, (the exception being luthier built of course).
 
I was unaware of the number of reviews that were violating the Amazon TOS until I received a uke from a certain bra, and I'm not interested in helping those vendors who are scamming the market. I only wish I knew who all of them are.

OTOH, it's entirely possible that a vendor is both scamming reviews and making a good product. And it's likely that I don't know about either one of those things.

It's a tough call and I don't know what I'd do in your situation, probably something similar. It's good that you're leaving your options open. I'd somewhat like to know about any good value, but not that badly. There are plenty of ukes to review that meet your criteria.
 
I was unaware of the number of reviews that were violating the Amazon TOS until I received a uke from a certain bra, and I'm not interested in helping those vendors who are scamming the market. I only wish I knew who all of them are.

this is exactly one of the reasons why the breaching of the review policy is so worrying to me. There are brands out there that may be good but are not breaching anything who are getting overlooked by falsely raised high review percentages. And unless you are aware of who is doing the 'free ukes for reviews' deal, it's impossible for buyers to know. That makes the whole Amazon review system completely flawed.

I don't want to be part of that.
 
Baz,
Thank you so very much for your reviews. Even though I am not currently shopping, I still enjoy them for entertainment purposes, and I use them to steer friends and new club members away from being ripped off.
I applaud your decision to exclude Amazon only brands from your reviews.
Your review of the Cocobolo tenor uke clinched my decision to buy one (a concert size) for myself, even though I had already played a concert and tenor myself, because you caught things that I missed. I've never been happier with a uke, and have played it more than all my others put together.
Keep on keepin' on. Blow off the naysayers.
Happy 2018!
 
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